


I Hurt Myself Today

by heisenfox



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Not Avengers Infinity War Compliant, Soulmate AU, shared pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 22:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14903048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heisenfox/pseuds/heisenfox
Summary: In a world where soulmates are identified by shared pain, it's remarkably difficult to find yours if you're not only prone to accidents, but work alongside spies who are constantly equally hurt.





	I Hurt Myself Today

**Author's Note:**

> *dj khaled voice* anotha one!!!
> 
> another prize fic that is. this one is for [@MrsGordonNygma](http://twitter.com/MrsGordonNygma), who requested a fic where Nat and Clint are soulmates via a shared pain bond!

In a world where your soulmate shares the pain you feel, it should be easy to find them, shouldn’t it? That’s what Clint had grown up believing. But then he joined the circus, and though eh stayed until he was 18 and the bond should have kicked in, was constantly surrounded by people who bore pain identical or nearly identical to his. After that he joined SHIELD, and it was even _more_ difficult. Broken wrist? Yeah, same with Agents Smith, Johns, and Lopez. Bruised ribs? Good luck, the entire Delta Squad had some of those. Hell, even something more rare like a broken collarbone? Really solid try, but Agents Valk, Roberts, Mills, Nolan, _and_ Bane were rocking those.

So, by the time he hit thirty, Clint had decided soulmates weren’t meant for everyone, and that was okay. Because while shared pain may sound super romantic, it was _nothing_ compared to the feeling of truly sharing pain with a teammate by acquiring the injuries together. Like when he and Phil were sent to take out the Russian spy known as the Black Widow; they nearly had her, and then they were blasted through a window, over a balcony, and into the pool below. Though the water broke their fall, they still sustained some injuries, including a matching broken pinky toe on their right foot that made traipsing across Budapest after their target _hell_. But it was shared hell, and they understood each other in a way others probably never could.

When Clint deviated and brought the Widow — Natasha, she said her name was — into SHIELD as a member, he was immediately partnered with her, and he sent her a toothy grin. She may be all grace and poise when she’s on her own, but Clint Barton has a special knack for getting himself into hijinks, and one way or another, he and Romanoff were going to wind up sharing a lot of pain. He said as much to her on the eve of their first mission, and she’d just laughed — which she came to regret the next day when they were sporting matching bruises around their necks after being choked by the muscle working for their target.

* * *

And so Clint’s life carried on. Throughout all his time at SHIELD and his time after joining the Avengers, he found himself constantly sharing his pain with the people around him, just never in the way he secretly hoped to. Still, life could be worse; he wasn’t alone by any means, and though some of his teammates were paired off with their soulmates, some had also given up hope, and they’d formed a little ragtag group of love rejects.

Among those paired off were Steve and Bucky, who were lucky enough that they figured out their soul bond long before either one was a super-soldier; Clint could only imagine how difficult finding each other would have been otherwise. Bruce and Thor were also paired off, though theirs had been a surprise to everyone — it seemed that while Hulk protected Bruce from things like death, by his own hand or otherwise, he also protected him from pain by absorbing anything beyond what the doctor could tolerate. Their bonding was also unique in that while, like all bonds, it waited for maturation to take effect — a biological effect scientists believed was designed to protect children from immeasurable pain — the bond truly traversed time and space by recognizing that Thor, though many centuries older than Bruce, hadn’t hit maturity until a few years _after_ Bruce did, which meant that their bond didn’t even begin to take until after Bruce had become the Hulk. It wasn’t until they were on Sakaar together, and intimately aware of each others’ wounds — as they inflicted them upon the other — that they realized what was happening. Tony was also in a rare bond, his being a three-way connection between himself, Rhodey, and Pepper, and though it looked confusing from the outside, it was very clearly full of love.

Meanwhile, the Love Rejects consisted of Clint, Natasha, Drax, Quill, and Strange. Drax wasn’t so much a love reject as he was a person whose soulmate had already passed, and Quill, due to his Celestial DNA, was one of the extremely rare few who was born without a bond. Strange was in no hurry to find his mate, and Clint and Natasha had already agreed to be spinsters together. But, in reality, Clint found himself hanging out in Quill’s apartment long after their fake meetings — really just an excuse to drink and gorge on pizza — ended, talking the man’s ear off about how much he used to dream of finding his soulmate when he was a kid.

“I ever tell you about the trapeze artist and the ringleader?” he asks Peter one night, nursing his fifth beer. It usually takes him six to get mopey _and_ chatty, but he’s feeling especially low tonight, what with his birthday approaching and all. When Quill shakes his head no, Clint launches into the story. “There was this trapeze girl, most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen in the circus, and she was married to the ringleader, right? She had been told at a young age that she didn’t have a soulmate, so she never looked for ‘em. The ringleader was the same, and he was a fucker if ever I’ve known one. Real asshole, verbally and physically abusive kind of guy. Gave me the lovely scars behind my knees one summer when I broke my wrist. Anyway, girl was miserable, hated her life, and wanted out. Then one day, she’s sitting at her vanity, no one and nothing near her when she feels a sudden pang in her thigh. She looks around, thinking maybe she just didn’t hear someone sneaking up on her, but there’s no one there. What’s more, the pain continues, and she can’t see a single mark. Then she hears the shouts.” He pauses, takes another swig of beer, and laughs.

“There was this hotshot horse guy, right? He’d do all these flips and stuff on the back of a moving horse. He ran his mouth to the ringleader the night before, thinking Boss was too drunk to remember the next day — not only did he remember, he decided to do something about it. Turns out his way of doing something about it was to shoot the guy in the thigh with one of my arrows, and that’s the pain the ringleader’s wife was feeling.”

Quill is quiet for a moment, considering, before he speaks. “So, you’re saying that soulbonds don’t just appear instantly at maturation? That they can happen at any time?”

Clint downs the rest of his beer and nods dramatically. “Yup,” he says, popping his lips on the P. “At least, that’s how I always interpreted that night. I could be wrong, but…can’t hurt to hope, right?” His last words are vulnerable and small, and Quill takes one look at his friend before agreeing emphatically.

“There’s hope for your tragic ass yet, Hoss,” he says, clapping Clint hard on the shoulder.

* * *

Things continue on much in the same way for the next several months, and Clint finds that talking things out with Quill, drunk or otherwise, is actually extraordinarily helpful. It starts getting easier to put soulbonds out of his mind, and his loneliness is truly starting to fade. Which, of course, is when things get interesting.

It starts with a toothache, which he actually overlooks at first. He had braces when he was a teen, so when one of his class two molars starts to ache, he assumes it’s because of that — he knew the fact that he broke so many brackets and had rings on so many molars was going to bite him in the ass one day. His dentist had even said at his last visit that his enamel was horrifyingly thin. So he rubbed on some Orajel and went on with his day — without realizing that the tooth had gone numb about twenty seconds before he actually applied the analgesic.

Then it’s a phantom pain in his right pinky — he had lost all feeling in that pinky years ago in a freak circus accident, but he did occasionally have phantom pains there, the way one with a missing limb would. He never thought anything of it before and though he really doesn’t pay it much mind. He even manages to ignore the tingling on his shoulder that something in the back of his mind says feels like a friendly slap — he just assumes his arm is falling asleep and carries on with his day. And, really, he would’ve managed to _keep_ carrying on with his day, if he hadn’t gone into the kitchen and seen Natasha icing her right hand.

He can feel the color draining from his face, and he has trouble finding his voice at first. “Nat,” he rasps before clearing his throat. “What’d you do to your hand?”

Bucky, who is sitting next to her, laughs and says, “She lost her edge in the ring with me for the first time ever. I might have accidentally fractured her pinky.”

Natasha removes the ice pack and holds up her hand; her pinky is swollen, and mostly purpled with bruises. Clint grimaces, and slowly walks towards her, reaching for her hand. He takes it gently in his, and she just stares at him, confused but not stopping him. Bucky seems to have figured out what’s going on, because he’s furiously typing away at a text without looking away from them.

“You remember the story I told you about the seal and the hula hoop?” Clint asks Natasha, still gently holding her hand, staring down at her pinky but avoiding contact.

“Yes,” Natasha says softly. “You were filling in for a sick clown, some new kid who didn’t want to get sacked for missing one show, and the seal was extra agitated that day.”

Clint nods. “Mhm. And he flicked his tail too roughly.”

“Broke your…right pinky. You….”

Clint finally looks up at Natasha, eyes shining; neither of them have noticed that their audience has multiplied — Steve, Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Quill, and Drax all hover in the doorway. “I told you one more thing about that pinky. Do you remember?”

Natasha nods slowly. “You lost all feeling in it, but sometimes you get phantom pains.”

Clint starts to inch his fingers across Natasha’s hand, making his way toward her bruises. “Right in one. But today, the pain was a little bit sharper than they used to be. I was set to ignore it until I came in here and saw this,” he says, both of them looking down as he squeezes Natasha’s pinky roughly on the last word.

They let out identical hisses of pain, and their eyes shoot back up, making startled eye contact. “Bucky, did you slap her shoulder right before I came in here?” Clint asks frantically, not looking away from Natasha, but still recognizing that the man was nodding frantically. “Do it again.”

Bucky does as he’s told, and Clint flinches as he feels the tingling anew in his own shoulder. “Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.” He laughs wetly, and Natasha flings her arms around his neck, pulling him close and hiding her face against him so nobody can see the tears Clint can feel her shedding on his shoulder. “All this time and we never noticed because _every time you got hurt it was my fault_ because I’m such a _fucking klutz_ that we wound up with similar if not identical bruises. All this _fucking time._ ”

He starts peppering the top of her head with kisses, laughing more and more as tears start to flow freely from his own eyes. Finally, Natasha looks back up at him, and instead of letting go, pulls him in even closer, pressing her lips to his. Their friends finally react, and start cheering loudly; Clint pulls away, and this time Natasha is the one laughing. “You fucking idiot,” she says fondly. “I had to be bonded to the least graceful man alive.”

Clint pulls her close again, kissing her forehead tenderly. “Yeah,” he agrees. “You did.”

**Author's Note:**

> blah blah blah, I've said it before, I'll say it again -- unbeta'd, mistakes my own, etc, etc
> 
> title from Mr. Johnny Cash


End file.
